Exam Offerings

Please see Piazza for details.

Coding Exams

Coding exams (lab practicals) are conducted in your assigned in-person lab.

Multiple Choice Exams

Midterm Exam 1

There are two offerings of the midterm 1 (both in Wells Hall B115):

Midterm Exam 2

There are two offerings of the midterm 2 (both in Wells Hall B115):

Final Exam

There are two offerings of the final exam (both in Wells Hall B115):

Exam Policies

This course has 5 exams (3 multiple choice exams and 2 coding lab practical exams). Each exam is 90 minutes in duration (from timer start to timer end). ID checks will be performed, so please bring your student ID (or some other form of photo ID).

Content

All exams are comprehensive. This includes material from lectures, labs, and homework. Each exam will cover material up to and including the week prior (e.g. Exam 1 will cover Weeks 00-04).

Required Textbook

Exam questions will refer directly to examples and statements from the required textbook, “Tour of C++, 3rd Ed.”. Please ensure that you bring a physical copy of the book to all exams.

Preparation

Associated with each week, sample exam questions are provided with questions broadly similar to the ones that will appear on the actual exam. The best way to prepare is to solve these sample exams, on your own, with the material you intend to bring to the actual exam. If you can’t solve a question, come to help room, or ask on Piazza. We recommend that only after solving the sample questions, should you look at the solutions.

Cheatsheets and Exam Aids

The exam is open note, meaning that you can bring whatever material you want, so long as it’s not electronic. Printouts of reference material, textbooks, notes, the sample exams and keys, etc. are all fine to bring. Please ensure that you also bring the textbook.

I recommend bringing reference material on the topics that are hard to remember. For the Final Exam, you might consider the useful functions in the STL algorithm library and the many data structures (std::vector, std::string, std::map, std::set, etc.).

Multiple Choice Exam Details

The exam location and time(s) will be announced on Piazza. The exams are conducted with bubble sheets, so be sure to bring a pencil and eraser. No electronics are allowed, so please leave smart watches, headphones, and similar wearables in your bag. The time remaining will be announced verbally and written on the board.

Coding Exam Details

Two of the lab sessions will be dedicated to lab practicals. You will be given an in-class Codio assignment in lieu of the regular lab assignment. Please bring your computer (recommended fully charged as there are limited outlets) to the lab you are enrolled in. The exam’s Codio page is the only application that you’re allowed to have open (no IDEs). You are welcome to use any non-electronic resource during the exam. This includes textbooks, printed lecture slides, notes, example solutions to homework (including instructor solutions), and birthday cards. You may not use any online reference material or any other electronic resource.

RCPD Accommodations Letters

If you have a letter for accommodations from RCPD, please make a private Piazza post with the letter attached. On the Piazza post announcing details for the exam, details will be given for how to receive your requested accommodations.

Makeup Exams

Make up for missed exams won’t be offered for Midterm Exam 1 or Midterm Exam 2 as the Final Exam will replace such a missed exam (see the syllabus). Generally, makeup exams will consist of an hour-long oral exam conducted via Zoom. These will be one-on-one and involve the student demonstrating their mastery of the material covered in the missed exam by verbally answering questions and writing code that meets the specifications provided by the proctor. Students are permitted the same notes as that which they could bring to the regular exam. We recommend taking the regularly assigned exam instead of these oral exams as students often report that the oral exams are more stressful, despite not being more challenging. If you would like to request such a makeup exam, please make a private Piazza post as soon as possible detailing the circumstances around why you didn’t attend the scheduled exam and your availability/schedule for taking the oral exam.

Please note: a grade penalty may be applied to the makeup exam depending on circumstances and promptness.